I represent the first generation who, when we were born, the television was now a permanent fixture in our homes. When I was born people had breakfast with Barbara Walters, dinner with Walter Cronkite, and slept with Johnny Carson.
Read the full "Pre-ramble"

Monday, April 30, 2018

As always, the further we go back in Hollywood history,the more that fact and legend become intertwined.It's hard to say where the truth really lies.

May 5, 1993

The final episode of Quantum Leap aired on NBC.

Mirror Image was
the 22nd and final episode of Season 5 of Quantum Leap, also the 96th and final
episode of the series. Written by series creator and executive producer Donald P. Bellisario, the episode, which was
directed by James Whitmore, Jr., made its premiere airing
on NBC-TV on May 5, 1993.

August 8, 1953 Sam
leaps into a bar in Cokeburg, PA, a coal mining town, at the exact moment of
his birth, when he looks into a mirror he sees his own image looking back. As
he converses with the bar's owner and bartender Al (Bruce
McGill), viewers soon learn that it was Sam who wanted to put right what
once went wrong; that's why he created Project Quantum Leap.

Sam is given a choice to return home or continue
leaping. Sam says he wants to return home, but first he feels he needs to fix
one more thing, for his friend Al. Sam leaps back to April 1, 1969 (Episode: "M.I.A.") to tell Al's first wife Beth
that Al is still alive and will come home.

The episode ends with captions that state Al and
Beth never divorced but instead had four daughters. The final caption reveals
that Doctor Sam Beckett never returned home.

Two alternate endings for this episode are known
to have been scripted in case the series was renewed for another season, both
of which included a present day scene between Al and Beth, having remained
married in the new timeline, discussing Al leaping himself to look for Sam.
Production stills were found in February 2018 suggesting that at least one of
these endings was filmed. A third, simpler alternate ending was also produced
showing a family photo of Al and Beth with their four daughters instead of the
ending title cards.

Monday, April 23, 2018

As always, the further we go back in Hollywood history,the more that fact and legend become intertwined.It's hard to say where the truth really lies.

April 25, 1908

Edward R. Murrow was born Egbert Roscoe Murrow.He first came to prominence with a series of radio news broadcasts during World War II, which were followed by millions of listeners in the United States.

A chain smoker throughout his life, Murrow was almost never seen without his trademark Camel cigarette. It was reported that he smoked anywhere from sixty to sixty-five cigarettes a day, equivalent to roughly three packs. See It Now was the first television program to have a report about the connection between smoking and cancer; Murrow said during the show that "I doubt I could spend a half hour without a cigarette with any comfort or ease." He developed lung cancer and lived for two years after an operation to remove his left lung.

Murrow died at his home on April 27, 1965, two days after his 57th birthday. His colleague and friend Eric Sevareid said of him, "He was a shooting star; and we will live in his afterglow a very long time." CBS carried a memorial program, which included a rare on-camera appearance by Paley.

The show stars Robert Urich as private detective Dan Tanna, who drove to his assignments around the streets of Las Vegas in a beautiful red 1957 Ford Thunderbird convertible, working for a wide variety of clients, helping solve crimes, and making Las Vegas a better place for residents and tourists alike.

Dan Tanna is a Las Vegas private detective whose many clients include Phillip Roth (Tony Curtis), a.k.a. "Slick", the owner of multiple hotel casinos, including the Maxim Hotel and Desert Inn Hotel & Country Club, in Las Vegas. Tanna is called often to investigate criminal cases or even sometimes more absurd situations, such as a nun who claims to own the land on which the Desert Inn Hotel Casino stands.

Tanna lives on the Las Vegas Strip next to Circus Circus Hotel/Casino, in the theatrical props warehouse owned by the Desert Inn Hotel and Country Club. The props warehouse where Tanna lives was converted into Tanna's living quarters. The design of Tanna's place allows him to park his red T-bird in his living room. Tanna also uses gadgets that were high-tech for the early 1980s, such as a car-phone and an answering machine that physically picks the phone up off the hook and into the microphone of a tape recorder.

April 26, 1933

Carol Creighton
Burnett was born.

Actress,
comedienne, singer and writer, whose career spans six decades of television.
She is best known for her long-running TV variety show, The Carol Burnett
Show,
originally aired on CBS. She has achieved success on stage,
television and film in varying genres including dramatic and comedy roles. She
also has appeared on various talk shows and as a panelist on game shows.

Born
in San Antonio, Texas, Burnett moved with her
grandmother to Hollywood, where she attended Hollywood High School and
eventually studied theater and musical comedy at UCLA. Later she performed in
nightclubs in New York City and had a breakout success on Broadway in 1959
in Once Upon a
Mattress,
for which she received a Tony Award nomination. She soon made her television
debut, regularly appearing on The Garry Moore
Show for
the next three years, and won her first Emmy Award in 1962. In 1963, she was the star of the
Dallas State Fair Musicals presentation of "Calamity Jane". Burnett moved to Los Angeles, California, and began an 11-year run as star of The
Carol Burnett Show on CBS television from 1967
to 1978. With its vaudeville roots, The
Carol Burnett Show was a variety show that combined comedy sketches with song and dance. The comedy sketches
included film parodies and character pieces.
Burnett created many memorable characters during the show's run, and both she
and the show won numerous Emmy and Golden Globe Awards.

The Disneyland Story is hosted by Harry Anderson and was aired around the 1990's. You hop aboard the Disneyland railroad for a time traveling trip back into Disneyland history. The special covers the history of Disneyland from its conception to the future projects in store.

This special features music from the Back to the Future Soundtrack byAlan Silvestri.

Thursday, April 19, 2018

We’ll welcome back actress and author Joyce Bulifant and author and showbiz historian Geoffrey Mark on this weekend’s edition of TV CONFIDENTIAL, airing April 20-23 at the following times and venues:

Share-a-Vision Radio
San Francisco Bay Area
Friday 4/20
7pm ET, 4pm PT
10pm ET, 7pm PT
Click on the Listen Live button at KSAV.org
Use the TuneIn app on your smartphone and type in KSAV
Hear us on the KSAV channel on CX Radio Brazil
Hear us on your cell phone or landline number by dialing 712-432-4235

Indiana Talks
Marion, IN
Saturday 4/21
8pm ET, 5pm PT
Sunday 4/22
10am ET, 7am PT
Click on the player at IndianaTalks.com
or use the TuneIn app on your smartphone and type in Indiana Talks

Most people know Joyce Bulifant from her many appearances on such popular game shows as Password, Crosswits, Tattletales, To Tell the Truth, $25,000 Pyramid, Name That Tune, and, of course, the CBS Match Game, not to mention her roles on such film, TV and stage productions as The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Love Thy Neighbor, The Bill Cosby Show, Perry Mason, Alcoa Presents, Big John, Little John, the Tom, Dick and Mary edition of 90 Bristol Court, The Paisley Convertible, Auntie Mame, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, Disney’s The Happiest Millionaire and, of course, Airplane! Joyce Bulifant is also known for her effervescent personality and smile. Those were difficult for Joyce to maintain sometimes, in the face of her real-life struggle with dyslexia and feelings of self worth, and a series of tumultuous marriages characterized by alcoholism, co-dependency and addictive behavior.

A story of eternal love that is woven through the fabric of the entertainment world, Joyce’s book, My Four Hollywood Husbands, is a memoir of her life and career, interwoven through the story of her marriages to James McArthur, Edward Mallory, William Asher and Roger Perry. A beacon of hope for anyone who finds themselves caught in the web of addiction, the book also reminds us that, as Joyce herself puts it, “If you’re not afraid to learn and to keep trying, there can be a happy ending.”

My Four Hollywood Husbands has become incredibly timely since Joyce’s last visit to our program, in more ways that anyone could imagine. We’ll tell why when Joyce Bulifant joins us in our second hour.

This week being the birthday week of Ella Fitzgerald, and this year being the centennial year of Ella’s birth, we will say Happy Birthday to the First Lady of Song in our first hour when we welcome back singer, comedian and show business raconteur Geoffrey Mark. Geoffey’s latest book, Ella: A Biography of the Legendary Ella Fitzgerald, is a comprehensive biography and discography of the greatest female singer in history—a true pioneer whose personal life was one of the best-kept secrets in show business.

Also this week: Tony Figueroa and Donna Allen will bring us Part 2 of our look at the 40th anniversary of the birth of The Blues Brothers as part of This Week in TV History. This week’s segment will focus particularly on the many great musicians that Dan Ackroyd introduced to a new generation by way of The Blues Brothers.

Monday, April 16, 2018

Harry Anderson Anderson died in his Asheville, North Carolina home on April 16, 2018.Anderson was born October 14, 1952, in Newport, Rhode Island. Anderson was drawn to the art of magic in his youth. After moving to Los Angeles, he practiced his skills often. He joined the Dante Magic Club in his teens and reportedly made money as a street magician in San Francisco when he was 17.He graduated from North Hollywood High School in 1970 as class valedictorian.

His many appearances on Saturday Night Live led to his role as Harry "The Hat" Gittes on the several seasons of the TV sitcom Cheers and eventually as Judge Harry Stone on another hit television sitcom Night Court.

Anderson went on to appear in numerous other TV specials and shows, including 12 appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. As a magician, Anderson has since toured extensively and performed many comedy/magic shows for clubs and broadcast, including Harry Anderson's Sideshow in 1987.In 1990, he starred in the television adaptation of Stephen King's It as the adult Richie Tozier. From 1993 to 1997, Anderson starred in the TV sitcom Dave's World, based loosely on the life and columns of humor columnist Dave Barry.

Together with longtime friend Turk Pipkin, Anderson wrote a book called Games You Can't Lose: A Guide for Suckers, a collection of gags, cons, tricks and scams. First published in 1989, this title also contains a survey of "Games You Can't Win" told from an insider's perspective. He appeared with Criss Angel in a TV special called The Science of Magic, later released on DVD. In November 2008, Anderson played himself on an episode of 30 Rock along with fellow Night Court cast members Markie Post and Charles Robinson.

Anderson kept a nominally low profile after Dave's World was canceled. Tired of L.A.'s glaring spotlight, Anderson moved from Pasadena, California, to New Orleans in 2002. In the 1990s, he and his second wife Elizabeth (whom he met in New Orleans while she was bartending) opened a small shop in the French Quarter named "Sideshow" selling various "magic, curiosities, and apocrypha".

In 2000, Anderson hosted the pilot for a potential revival of the classic panel game show What's My Line? for CBS primetime. It was rejected later in favor of the long-running reality show Survivor.

In 2005, Anderson opened a nightclub in the French Quarter called "Oswald's Speakeasy", located at 1331 Decatur Street at the corner of Esplanade Avenue.He performed a one-man show there called Wise Guy.

Anderson appears in Hexing a Hurricane, a documentary about the first six months in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.He and his wife Elizabeth sold Oswald's Speakeasy in October 2006. Anderson continued to present his evening show Wise Guy, which was originally developed for his theater in New Orleans.Popular webcomic Homestuck makes several references to Anderson, including a fictional book by Anderson called Wise Guy.

A longtime fan of singer Mel Tormé, Anderson's character Judge Stone on Night Court was also a Tormé fan; the singer appeared on the sitcom six times (as himself). Night Court's creator Reinhold Weegestated that Anderson being a Tormé fan like his character was completely coincidental. Anderson was among those who delivered eulogies at the singer's funeral in 1999.

As always, the further we go back in Hollywood history,the more that fact and legend become intertwined.It's hard to say where the truth really lies.

April 22, 1978

The Blues Brothers make
their world premiere on Saturday Night Live. The characters and the band that Belushi
and Aykroyd unveiled that night took more than two years to evolve. The first
incarnation came during SNL's first season, in a January 17, 1976,
appearance singing "I'm a King Bee" as "Howard Shore and his
All-Bee Band." There were no dark suits, skinny ties or Ray-Bans at that
point, but the appearance did feature Aykroyd on the harmonica and Belushi on
vocals belting out a blues classic very much in the style of the future Elwood
and "Joliet" Jake Blues, albeit while wearing bee costumes. The Blues
Brothers' look—and much of their repertoire—would come together after Belushi's
trip to Eugene, Oregon, during the hiatus between SNL
seasons two and three to film Animal House. It was there that
Belushi, a committed rock-and-roll fan, met a 25-year-old bluesman named Curtis
Salgado, future harmonica player for Robert Cray, frontman for Roomful of Blues
and a major figure on the burgeoning Pacific Northwest blues scene of the 1970s. Belushi became a regular visitor to the Eugene
Hotel to catch Salgado's act during the filming of Animal House, and it
was from that act and from Salgado himself that he picked up a passion for the
blues as well as the inspiration for the Blues Brothers' sound and look .

Back
in New York for the third season of SNL,
Belushi and Aykroyd honed their concept for the Blues Brothers Band and
recruited an incredible roster of backing instrumentalists drawn from among the
finest blues and R&B session musicians in the country. Even if their debut
performance on this night in 1978 hadn't been a huge hit, the band was far too
good to break up after a single gig. Indeed, the closing portion of Paul
Shaffer's introduction that night—"Today they are no longer an authentic
blues act, but have managed to become a viable commercial product"—ended
up being borne out in real life, with the Blues Brothers earning three top-40
hits ("Soul Man," "Rubber Biscuit" and "Gimme Some
Lovin'"), a #1 pop album (Briefcase Full of Blues) and a piece of
screen immortality via their 1980 film, The Blues Brothers.

April 22, 1978

Maude aired its final
episode after 6 seasons on the air.

"Maude's
Big Move: Part 3"

Maude
and Walter leave New York for Washington, D.C. to begin a new chapter in their
lives. Final episode of the series.

CHILD OF TELEVISION @ iTunes

Pre-ramble

I represent the first generation whom, when we were born, the television was now a permanent fixture in our homes. When I was born people had breakfast with Barbara Walters, dinner with Walter Cronkite, and slept with Johnny Carson.
Read the full "Pre-ramble"